


Intelligence Runs In The Family

by InterPlanetaryGirl



Series: Where the willingness is great, the difficulties cannot be great. [4]
Category: Iron Man - All Media Types, Spider-Man: Homecoming (2017)
Genre: Father-Son Relationship, Fluff, Gen, Pepper dresses all three of them tbh, Press Conference, Snark, brother bonding, i guess
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-27
Updated: 2017-10-27
Packaged: 2019-01-25 05:17:38
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,637
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12523844
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InterPlanetaryGirl/pseuds/InterPlanetaryGirl
Summary: “Firstly, Spider-Man doesn’t hurt people for no reason other than his own entertainment, even annoying little twerps who challenge him despite being a year older than Spider-Man himself and - theoretically - more mature. Secondly, I wasn’t kidding about that flight, your aunt and mom called your schools to inform them you’re taking this impromptu break and they’ll be emailing the work to you while we’re there.”"Theoretically," Peter pointed out, "you're supposed to be more mature than both of us."“And you’re going to make us do it?” Harley asked.***A press conference is needed since the adoption was confirmed.





	Intelligence Runs In The Family

**TONY STARK HAS GONE THROUGH THE ADOPTION CHANNELS?**

 

That was the headline just over two months after they all discussed the initial process, and barely two  _weeks_ since it was finalised legally, that greeted Tony one morning when Pepper showed him.

“You’re going to have to do a conference. And the kids are going to have to be present,” she informed him.

“Fine,” he sighed, he knew it was inevitable. “Set it up for Friday so that I can have Harley flown out.” She nodded before they continued to prepare their breakfast, Pepper kissing his cheek goodbye before he had finished.

* * *

“So, have you met them?” Ned asked excitedly that morning.

“Have I met who?” Peter asked.

“You know! Mr Stark’s soon-to-be adopted kid!” Peter stopped dead for a moment. They weren’t allowed to speak about it to _anybody_ who wasn’t involved, and Peter understood that that meant Ned as well. Nobody could find out until they were ready to announce people and it was fine that way. Which is why he had to hold back a smirk as he answered.

“Oh yeah, I’ve met them.”

“What are they like?! Why didn’t you tell me?!” Ned asked, still excited.

“They’re excellent at science and mechanics, of course. Really nice, too. And I couldn’t tell you because of legal stuff. This all has to be extremely confidential for numerous reasons.”

“Oh...I guess that makes sense,” Ned agreed after a moment of silence, nodding.

* * *

“Hey, so the conference is going to be held at noon tomorrow, is that okay? Harley’s getting in about nine,” Tony told him Thursday after his training.

“That’s cool. Is there any point in going to school?” Tony thought for a moment.

“Honestly? No, I think Pepper has picked out both of your’s clothes as well. Just a warning.” Peter huffed. “Don’t look like that,” he said. “She does the same for me as well more often than not.”

* * *

“Dude where are you?” Ned asked after Peter picked up the phone on the third ring.

“Aunt May wants me to stay home today,” he told Ned with a shrug, even though the boy couldn’t see it. He felt bad about lying to his best friend. “I got a concussion last night after a guy got a good hit in and I went into a wall pretty hard. Even with my advanced healing she still wants to make sure everything is alright.”

“Oh, I guess that makes sense.” Peter hung up quickly after saying goodbye when Pepper walked into the room with the hangers containing the clothes she had picked for him and Harley, as well as two shoe boxes.

“You don’t have to wear the jacket if you don’t want but take it with you just in case. It gets a bit breezy in conference rooms sometimes,” she informed him and he nodded as he took his hangers.

Currently they’re on Peter’s floor of the Tower, the living room specifically. They’re leaving in just over an hour so they don’t necessarily need to get dressed right now.

When the time did come, after watching another episode and a half of friends because daytime TV is uneventful and the only other thing on was the news speculating about who Tony Stark’s adopted kid would be.

Harley had gotten a shower as well because of the fact he flew in a couple of hours ago and felt gross afterwards, and was in a grey shirt with a darker grey zip-up hoodie on top, dark blue jeans, with white high top basketball sneakers.

Peter’s own clothes were a white t-shirt - which may or may not be too tight, he didn’t know since all of his own clothes were baggy, it may just be fitted - with black jeans, brown combat boots, and his blazer was sat over the back of the couch waiting to be taken with him when they leave.

They ended up leaving almost five minutes late, due to Tony arguing with Pepper over the colours she’d chosen for him to wear. Apparently he didn’t like it no matter how much it complimented his eyes. They ended up compromising the end from what they could tell.

* * *

Pepper had already left by the time they got in the car, so they were simply sat with music on, something they could all enjoy, since ACDC wasn’t something Harley and Peter wanted to listen to _quite_ as much as Tony did, much to his displeasure.

“Just be cool about it, and ignore any flashing cameras. There shouldn’t be any outside of course, but even inside, ignore them. Smile, or just don’t look unhappy to be honest. You both have sweet smiles that look boyishly charming so I’m sure they’ll eat it up. Peter, no telling people you’re Spider-Man, I’m sure that people will figure it out eventually, but not yet.”

“You sound more nervous than either of us,” Peter snorted from the middle seat in the back where he was leaning forward.

“No I don’t, shut up.”

“Kinda do, old man,” Harley commented with a raised eyebrow.

“Besides, never said we didn’t feel nervous, just don’t sound it,” Peter shrugged.

“You have your seat belt on right?” Tony checked, glancing in the rearview mirror as Peter pulled it forward from where it stretched across his chest. “And it’s easy enough to not be nervous if you haven’t been in that situation yet,” he pointed out.

“I’m in multiple youtube videos and face bad guys on the semi-regular, I think I’ll be okay. And I don’t want to tell people I’m Spider-Man, it’s going to be bad enough when I go back to school Monday.” Harley nodded in agreement at that point as they rounded the corner of the street to the building the press conference is being held in.

“And we don’t have to tell them. Not until you’re eighteen anyway. And I’d like to keep it that way if possible,” he sighed as they made their way into the parking lot.

Happy was waiting for them at the door which would lead them through the back of the place to get to the room.

* * *

Despite initially wearing the jacket given to him, he found it a little too humid when they walked closer to the room - or maybe it was the nerves finally hitting him. He wasn’t quite sweating though so it was okay.

They entered the room through a side door just as Pepper was finishing the rules and conditions for the conference before Tony walked up the steps and took her place.

“So, we all know why we’re here, and I’m here to clear everything up,” Tony starts. “You all seem to think I’ve adopted a kid, which,” he turns to Pepper stood towards the back of the stage in the left corner. “Do we know why that is yet?” She shakes her head subtly and he sighs before turning back to the crowd of reporters and journalists and cameras. “Well, I’m here to clear it up: I’ve not adopted a kid. I’ve adopted two teenagers.” The crowd burst into questions and cameras began flashing more intensely, so he raised a finger for them to stop “Their names are Harley Keener, seventeen years old, from Tennessee, and Peter Parker, sixteen, from Queens.” He waited for them to quiet down first. “I knew them both long before I adopted them, but they were already my sons long before we made it official. I’m sure Pepper already briefed you on rules for questions with them so ignore them and you won’t have a career anymore.”

“I think that’s our cue,” Harley said, taking the lead up the steps with Peter following just as fast, jittery in his nerves despite the smiles covering both his and his brother’s faces - and wasn’t that a weird concept, that he had a big brother now.

Tony was the one picking out the reporters to ask questions.

“How did you both meet Mr Stark, to the point where you were both adopted by him?”

“Well, I met him during the whole incident with the Mandarin. He broke into my garage where I kept all my engineering stuff and I fired my potato gun at him,” Harley told them with a shrug. “After that was all over, he completely re-kitted my tech, and after that we just? Kept in contact over the years.”

“I was just an intern who managed to get his attention by my ideas and intelligence, he took me on as his personal intern and from there we got to know each other and family dinners happened and such,” Peter said, as close to the truth as they were willing to divulge, and not entirely untrue - his ideas did get his dad’s attention.

“What made you want to be adopted by Mr Stark?” One reporter asked with a raised eyebrow.

“Not ‘made us’ want to be adopted by him,” Peter told them with finger quotes. “Not to be insulting, because he knows I don’t mean it the way it can come across, but our lives were alright before we met him, even when we bonded with him it wasn’t that we _needed_ to be adopted, and it wasn’t even our ideas to be honest. I love my Aunt May and still stay with her most of the week, and Harley still lives with his mom and sister and loves them, but like he said, the adoption was just making the father-son relationship official, so to speak. He brought it up and we liked the idea and agreed.”

“This was _after_ our legal guardians had agreed to it as well,” Harley added. “Think of it like a joint custody agreement between divorced parents.”

“Does this mean that you’ll be inheriting Stark Industries together or only one of you?” This had never been brought up in conversation before so they both turned to Tony who looked at them like he hadn’t thought of it either, because he most likely hadn’t, and even threw a glance at Pepper as if asking what to say, but moved back towards them and the microphones.

“It’s not something we’ve actively discussed, however I would like for them both to. What they decide to do with it would be up to them, but it’s likely that neither of them would be the _actual_ CEO since they’re both like me - more interested in the science side of the business, but we’ll have thought on it more by the time comes that we _need_ to think of something and that’s the important part.”  He moved back to where he was stood before, then, at the side of the podium and choosing people to ask questions.

“How did your guardians feel at first, over your growing paternal relationships with Tony Stark since he is Iron Man and people would try to harm him and by extension, you to harm him, for both his role as Iron Man and Tony Stark, owner of Stark Industries?”

“At first, my mom hated it. Initially after he completely redesigned by entire garage basically, she already insisted it was too much for him to do and they ended up having very long conversations before I was allowed to continue speaking with Tony,” Harley explained. “But she could see how happy it made me, to have a father-figure in my life, and one who was already _so good_ at everything I was interested in and could understand what I was actually saying. It just escalated from there.”

“And you, Mr Parker?” she asked, turning to Peter.

“Well, my aunt was incredibly enthusiastic about when I got my internship and she was proud when I managed to catch Mr Stark’s attention with my intelligence and he came to inform her before me that he was taking me on as a personal intern so they’d already met a few times by the time the relationship properly developed. As long as I still see her regularly and tell her everything that happens in my life then she doesn’t mind,” he shrugged. “All in all it went over well. She had him figured out before he even brought it up with her and told him how it was quite frankly.”

There were a couple more questions,("How is Mr Stark doing as a father so far?" "His jokes are terrible so pretty great I'd say,") but the press conference did have to end sometime of course.

“Now, you won’t be able to reach any three of us for a month because we’re going to be going for father-son and brotherly bonding holidays to my island and that’s that, don’t try to find us.”

“Saying it like that doesn’t sound somewhat threatening at all,” Peter muttered as they walked off the stage.

“Well, if it were, it’s not a threat against us.”

“I should hope not,” he said with an incredulous glance to Harley.

“Chill out. Anyway, who do you think would win in a fight: Iron Man or Spider-Man?” Harley asked with an amused look.  

“Hard to say,” Peter told him dryly. “On one hand Spider-Man has super strength, super agility, speed, healing, et cetera, et cetera. Now has training too. But like. Iron Man has faced so much more on the whole global-threat scale level so you know, _really_ difficult to answer.”

“I should hope so. I should also hope you keep quiet about it while you’re still in the building,” Tony commented from behind them.

“Oh relax,” Harley shrugged off. “I give them a year at least.”

“Well if you keep up the talking it’ll be a week at most.”

“Fair enough, I’ll stop asking the real questions we should be asking.”

“I think the real questions are going to be more along the lines of ‘is it possible for Spider-Man to throw Harley Keener through the wall?’” Peter joked. “The answer is yes. One-handed, too,” he smirked.

“Oh? Wanna test that theory?” Harley challenged with a raised eyebrow.

“Yes,” Peter smiled back at him, entirely confident in his ability.

“Firstly, Spider-Man doesn’t hurt people for no reason other than his own entertainment, even annoying little twerps who challenge him despite being a year older than Spider-Man himself and - theoretically - more mature. Secondly, I wasn’t kidding about that flight, your aunt and mom called your schools to inform them you’re taking this impromptu break and they’ll be emailing the work to you while we’re there.”

" _Theoretically_ ," Peter pointed out, "you're supposed to be more mature than both of us." 

“And you’re going to make us do it?” Harley asked. It wasn’t a whine, simply a question, because Tony was the last person who should be telling them to stay on task to complete work by deadlines.

“No, Pepper will. She’s not coming but she is keeping a track of your work. Also your mom and your aunt.”

“Yeah, okay, that’s fair,” Harley nodded.

“What reason are they giving that we’re leaving with next to no warning?”

“Your headteachers are being informed of what happens before everybody finds out because presumably class was in session so despite this being live on a couple of websites, they won’t have seen it yet. They’ve been told that information will be made available once the conference is finished. The real reason, however, is to give the news time to die down and also so neither of you are completely overwhelmed by the media stuff, nor are your schools. Also works for the schools because then they won’t have the big issue of press constantly being at the gates and whatnot.”

“And May and my mom agreed to this?”

“Reluctantly. Then I pointed out that they could come too if they wanted - but they have to work so it was a no. They agreed with my reasoning though, so it’s all good and cleared.”

**Author's Note:**

> Honestly I'm not too happy with how this ended up and it was definitely more of a filler/transition part of the series more than anything, also wanted to show slight development in their bonding. Peter wouldn't actually throw Harley into or through a wall, that's entirely saved for Captain Douchepants, whom I have decided I will also write a filler chapter for him and his crew also before moving onto the Big Cheese, so to speak, of the series so yeah. Made that executive decision before I could stop myself bc I'm great at planning - as made obvious by the four fics I've written and the one I've updated in the last week but the homework I've not even glanced at...fantastic. I'm great. 
> 
> Anywayyyyy please comment/kudos and give me prompts if you have any bc I have loads I need to get through but heyyyyyy more is always inspiring and what have you. God I'm awkward. my tumblr is sweetassaliens if you wanna follow that or something
> 
> p.s. when Peter said the phrase "the real question is..." and carried on talking, briefly his life ending at Michelle's hand for making a joke with that phrase flashed before his eyes


End file.
